How many couples are happy?

[Beethoven]

This thread will seem really cynical. This section of mumsnet is skewed because most people who post questions in here aren't happy with their marriages/long-term relationships.

I saw a film recently where the premise was that a man was employed to break up couples, but only if the woman was unknowingly unhappy. He argued there are three types of couples.

1)Those that are knowingly happy
2)Those that are knowingly unhappy - in the film it's their choice to split
3)Those that are unknowingly unhappy

It's got me thinking, out of the people in RL, how many couples do you know where you'd say they were knowingly happy, how many are knowingly unhappy, and then the biggy, how many are unknowingly unhappy?

My estimate would be about 50% are knowingly happy, and 25% knowingly unhappy and 25% unknowingly unhappy.

PS, I know this isn't a scientific survey, I'd just be interested in your general thoughts.

Well I'm happy.

Oh wait - I'm divorced.

As you were, then.

I think you have to be happy within yourself before you can allow yourself to be happy in a relationship.
I had 17 years of being happy, then my husband died and I felt such extreme sadness that I thought I would never recover from, I knew then that I had to find happiness from within for the sake of myself and our three children.
I reached a place where I felt mostly peaceful and content, the glass was half full but it wasn't the drink I ordered or even one that I liked but I knew I would someday get used to it and might even like it.
47 weeks ago I met the most amazing man and his two kids, we are now a family of seven we are very very happy but I also know that I can be happy on my own which gives me peace.

Notalways,

Sorry if I'm misinterpreting you here, but are you suggesting that many of the people who post on here who are unhappy in their relationships (excusing those that are being abused, etc) are mainly just miserable people?

What about those who are not exactly totally happy in marriage but know they'd be even more unhappy out of it? I can think of a few who probably fit that description...

Im unknowenly happy with my husband and my relationship but i'm depressed and so i know i'm knowenly unhappy with everything most of the time but deep down i love my family. I just think i'm a miserable person right now. Hopefully i will be knowningly happy some day soon

onlyjoking - that is so :)

we're knowingly happy I'm pleased to say. I still fancy the very bones of him and know he feels the same. Life can be hard work at times but I still long for the moment I hear his key in the door each evening and we talk and laugh lots. I do feel lucky esp when I read mn! Of our friends I'd say 80% are happy and the other 20% are knowingly unhappy. Circumstances seem to be preventing them from splitting.

I have been on cloud nine with dh, desperately unhappy with him though it was my fault, and now we are strong and happy together. Being together a long time with all the downs as well as ups makes you secure and builds the bond needed to have a marriage for life.

Is there an unknowingly happy category?

happy couple is an oxymoron

but maybe that's just me having a bad day!

onlyjoking, that has made me also.

I would say that me and DH are definitely knowingly happy (granted, I can't speak for him !). We, and all of our friends, are in the late 20s-early 30s bracket so we're all relatively newly married and children are just starting to appear. I would say that all of the couples that we know are happy ones at the moment.

In the previous generation, however, it's definitely a different story. Both mine and DH's parents have divorced after long marriages - I'd say both sets were unknowingly unhappy for a very long time until one person decided to act. I suspect that my aunts and uncles might also be unknowingly unhappy and my maternal grandparents most definitely are. They all stay together from a sense of Catholic guilt and because you simply "don't divorce".

It does make me wonder where me and DH will be in another 20yrs and a few kids time.

This is an interesting thread and I've had a little think about it. me and dh can fight and fight and fight, neither of us will give in, I'm stubborn and high maintenance. he has an inability to see when he's wrong .

We're both pretty flawed tbh, I've had my "issues" he's most certainly had his, he can be very angry. He's the remarkable independent, hard working and self sufficient and highly intelligent result of lazy, inept, inadequate parenting. God knows how he's managed to cope in life considering the example he was set but as a result he struggles with things like social norms, my expectations of a marital relationship and certain values.

I have been ecstatically happy with him and also so desperately unhappy I've felt like I was drowning. But that's partly me, I have hideous mood swings and don't do compromise. Children have tested us to the max and dare i say it robbed us of some of the joy we had with each other. DH loves being a parent I don't quite a lot of the time although I love and adore my children. He's a natural, I'm not.

Re lust, he's still the same, in fact probably more, I'm very variale another area that's a source of challenge and conflict for us.

Re the arguments they get both of us down, but having witnessed 2 close friends come out of 8 year very polite and civilised but passionless and avoidant relationships in their 30s I'll prob stick with the rows. My parents have ahd a tough ride but they love each other to bits and are together 45 years later. My best friends parents were polite and restrained with each other for years then when her little brother finished uni they split up because her Mum had been having a years long affair to escape her dull dry marriage.

Relationships are bloody hard work.

I still would have my husband as my first choice of who I could spend time with if given the choice of anyone I know. I love him more than anything and he is my best friend.

right, understand the question now. a.

or what tdiddy said.

i think some people post on MN who are in generally happy relationships but have hit a bad patch too....

my parents are knowingly happy - with each other though their situation has ups and downs.

Dh & I....well, unknowingly happy. this is a difficult time for us in some ways (3rd Dc just born, DH 18 months unemployed, finances tight as a ducks bottom..), but any time i think about it, i realise I'm happier now than before, and though Dh isn't perfect (and certainly in the past I could have posted some stuff on here which would have had you lot telling me he is a twunt that i should leave), we have alot going for us together, as we've both been willing to look at what we do and make an efort.

speaking of which, i was meant to be off Mumsnet and Being Social by now...

I must be unusual in that I dont know any couples who are unhappy.I am 66 and whilst I have known people divorce/separate in the past there havent been many.Dh is my 3rd.I divorced 1st but 2nd died and I am currently very happy with dh.

I would say DH and I are happy. Not in a lovey dovey, always hugging and kissing way, but we are happy being with each other, and wouldn't want to be apart.

I think it's funny that so many people think that you have to have arguments to be a happy couple . And if you don't have them, then you must have a passionless relationship.

Personally, I'm really happy (don't want to jinx it after 15+ years!) but we don't do arguments. We disagree about lots of things - most things really - but we know we're total opposites, so just get on with it and accept that the other person does things their way... Obviously, OH does things the wrong way, but if he wants to do it that way, then fair enough! We just laugh about it.

I waited for someone whom I totally fancied and as LeQueen says, really liked too. Also, we don't really look to each other for our happiness, iyswim, so the pressure's off! Onlyjoking's right when she says you need to be happy in yourself, whatever life throws at you, as there are bound to be awful events to get through.

I think that most people I know are in a happy relationship, as otherwise they'd split up - but I guess we project our own experiences onto others. For years, I've been waiting for my relationship to break down, because my parents were unhappy. Can't believe we're still happily together frankly

For the indulgently unhappy / unknowingly happy.....if you have children worth remembering that you are shaping their outlook...so count your blessings and cheer up for them ...don't mean to patronise...a mantra for myself as much as anyone else